A Queen's Tour

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Carol Hirschfeld describes it as their "after-school project". It's a big one, 12 hours of prime-time television and many more days in the air and on the roads of New Zealand.

It's not the first foray outside the newshour for her and newsreading partner John Campbell. There was the interview show Home Truths. He interviewed (maaaaaa-rvelously it must be said), she produced, and the network which puts them on the big billboards thought best to broadcast it at 11pm.

Faced with doing another under-promoted series for insomniacs only, and desperate to do something away from the autocues, they've come up with another idea: go talk to the country.

More specifically, talk to 12 centres which put on receptions for Queen Liz when, as a newly crowned 27-year-old, she visited in late 1953.

As well as looking back to that pre-telly age, Campbell presents and has many a yarn to the locals, especially the ones who remember the day Liz came to town. Hirschfeld is off camera as producer and director.

C4's Jacquie Brown ventures into the nightlife, featuring music from local acts known and obscure, and reporter Richard Langston weighs in with facts about the places (Whangarei, Hamilton, Rotorua, Gisborne, Napier, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Nelson, Timaru, Greymouth, Dunedin and Invercargill).

Q. But well, isn't this just Heartland in a suit?

A. Campbell: Um it's a bit different from Heartland. One of the things is we look at cities and Heartland was more interested in a rural view of New Zealand. We go to where people live and we got to 12 centres, and I think probably the smallest is Greymouth or Timaru, and then they go up to Hamilton or Dunedin in size. The other thing is the production standards are very, very different. It's very fast paced and it's got a surprisingly large number of facts in it.

Hirschfeld: I think it's very different from Heartland. When we came up with the idea of visiting the provinces we both felt that it was important that we weren't doing a programme like Heartland.

Speaking with some people who had worked with people on Heartland — and they will remain unnamed — one of those sources was telling me how they would go into town and pick the quirky people to tell the story of this place and whether that's a fair reflection of a place or not, certainly a lot of people from the town didn't think so.

But what we thought would possibly work, and what we find interesting is how surprising statistics about a place show a profile of it — New Plymouth has the highest number of beauticians in the country. Who would have thought? Don't ask me why.

Q. Where did you both grow up and did that affect your
perspective?

A. Hirschfeld: I'm an Auckland girl he's a Wellington boy.

Campbell: Which explains a great deal, I think.

Hirschfeld: Both of us come from current affairs backgrounds and spent quite a lot of time filming around the country. So we both had an idea about what these towns were like.

Campbell: The thing about working on a current affairs programme it tends to be the opposite of A Queen's Tour. You tend to see a town at its worst because normally it's a bad thing that has got you there — a natural disaster or a terrible crime or whatever. This is the opposite of that.

Hirschfeld: I am sure there will be some people who won't necessarily revel in the places in the way that our programme does. John does an extended interview with someone who has grown up in these centres and they are certainly not always singing the praises of the town they grew up in. They have a realistic look at the place.

Q. Did you encounter a reaction of: Here comes the Jafa
television crew?

A. Campbell: They do tend to say when they first see you, "Oh what are you doing here? What disaster's happened to us?" And when you kind of tell them their faces kind of light up.

Q. How do you refer to these places? "Provincial" can be insulting.

A. Campbell: I've no idea. Hamilton is sustained by agriculture and it's what keeps them going but there's nothing provincial about Victoria St in Hamilton any longer and there's nothing provincial about the main drag in New Plymouth.

It's a funny thing because when I was doing 20/20 and going to a lot of these towns — the central North Island, Wanganui and New Plymouth in particular — by God they've changed in the past decade and it's unbelievable how different they are.

Q. How's it feeling out there?

A. Campbell: There's a great deal of optimism and people are feeling really good. Some of the towns are surprisingly flashy. You know that James K. Baxter/Frank Sargeson sense of how repressed we were out in the country?

There are a couple of these towns which are real show-offs and that was kind of a pleasant surprise. New Plymouth is practically strutting.

Q. Are you republican or monarchists — and what will the show do for either side?

A. Campbell: Yeah we're both republicans. I don't think the show will do anything for either side particularly because while Carol and I are republicans now, New Zealand is such a different place than when the Queen was here 50 years ago.

We just reflect what New Zealand was like then. The other impression you get is how bloody hard old Liz worked. She was 27 and she just went from dawn to dusk shaking hands, looking at wood-chopping displays and sheep-shearing. She is a remarkable woman whatever you think of the institution.

Q. Wrong network, but it sounds very charter friendly.

A. Campbell: We think it's unbelievably charter friendly — we thought of it first, Mr Fraser, eh? Come on. Like a telethon — we want you to match it or go one better.

Hirschfeld: I will be keen to see what the news presenters do over there.

Campbell: Yeah come on. Hit us with your best shot.

Q. Getting back to the suit – you even wear one in a Rotorua hotpool?

A. Campbell: What I'm very proud of, apart from one rush of blood to the head, is I manage to remain in a suit for the entire series. This is A Queen's Tour, after all and one should be dressed appropriately.

Q. And obviously you weren't worried that the show's title might be misread as "John Campbell comes out"?

A. Campbell: That was my idea. I was quite happy to out myself in the interests of the series. And also, we knew that people like you would have fun with a title like this so we thought we should make the joke at our own expense before you buggers got to do it.

Tonight, 8:30pm, TV3